Yough fair features science and more

Members of the girls robotics team were on hand to show the public their robots and what they can do. Cameron Pils and Ashley McGhee work with “Cornelius,” who performed some dances.
MARILYN FORBES I FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW

We are currently undergoing updates to our site and are working to improve your experience on all devices that you use throughout your day. If you should find a page or a story that is not working correctly, please click here.

Thank you for your patience,

TribLIVE.com Team

With exhibits that carry titles such as “Are Fingerprints Inherited?” or “Is Black Ink Really Black?” the annual Yough Middle School Science and Health Fair is always an interesting and fun event, one that highlights the hard work and creativity of students while also including information and displays from the community and surrounding areas.

“This is hands-down the biggest one that we have had to date,” Yough Middle School teacher and event coordinator Brian Grindle said of the event that is now in its eighth year. “We have 52 different vendors, and that is up from the 45 we had last year.”

Almost the entire lower level of the school was occupied with science fair exhibits and booths, as hundreds and hundreds of people filtered through the hallways and rooms to see the displays.

“We come every year to see what is going on in the area,” said Ed Reese of West Newton. “Every year there is something different, and we always enjoy this.”

Grindle said that the event was launched as a way to combine the students' interests with the interests of the community.

“We are seeing more STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)-based educations, and we also wanted to develop an event that would include the community,” Grindle said. “This is one way for it all to come together.”

The gymnasium and library areas were filled with dozens of science projects that were planned and implemented by students in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

The students start on their projects in the fall and work on them until the big event.

“We help them with some ideas,” Grindle said, adding that for most of the students, an entry into the fair is on a voluntary basis. “There is a lot of independent work that goes into this.”

Each student who had a display stayed close by their exhibits to answer questions or explain their projects.

Student Tyler Mesiarik, 11, did his project on the different kinds of mulch that can be used to see which is the best.

“I tried nine different kinds,” Mesiarik said of his mulch project. “I found out that straw works the best.”

Community and informational booths included several collages, Pennsylvania Fish and Game, several natural resource booths, the YMCA, St Vincent Prevention Program, the Westmoreland County Food bank and many others.

Grindle estimated that about 2,000 attended this years event.

“The evening's event was a huge success due to the dedication and efforts of the people that participated in our science fair,” Grindle said. “ I just want to say thank you to those who took the time to educate and inform our students and community. We are looking forward to next year's event.”

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.